Describe the brief from the client
In the fight against AIDS, nothing is more important than wearing condoms. Most people know that. But still, young people aren’t always wearing condoms. We tried to find out why and discovered that it’s because the conversation is too uncomfortable to have with their partner. We decided to create comics and cartoons that lighten the mood around the topic, perhaps making it a little easier to discuss. We came up with dozens of comics and, from then on, our objective was to get busy, tired and overworked comic-book artists to draw comics for us, and to do it for free.

Describe the challenges and key objectives
This new effort started with a simple insight: in society, using condoms is less taboo than it used to be; but in moments of sexual intimacy, talking about protection is still an embarrassing conversation to have. Our challenge was to find clever ways to de-dramatize the somewhat embarrassing, if not plain awkward, moment when condoms need to be discussed. And in the process, our objective was to turn condoms into a positive advantage to get to that simple thing everyone wants: a dose of pleasure.

Describe how you arrived at the final design
We worked with Cristiano Siqueira to design “Castle” and “S&M.” “Castle” was inspired by medieval tapestries, with expression and detail added to make the humor come through. For “S&M” we worked with his dark comic-book style, and the result came out even better than we imagined. To create “Monkey,” we worked with Ren and Stimpy illustrator Mike Kazaleh and decided on an old-school comic-strip look. “Swamp” was inspired by classic comics like Swamp Thing that have a unique, dramatic and graphic visual style. Achieving this style was easy when we collaborated with illustrator Nathan Fox.

Give some indication of how successful the outcome was in the market
These color ads got an immediate response from audiences and media. We reached out to local bar owners, who donated space on their walls both inside and outside. Owners could choose to have an AIDS-awareness event surrounding the post of our large-scale print, or to solely display the art. Our large-scale posters were also hung on walls of Paris' Marais district. The work spread awareness within the areas about the AIDES organization -- traffic and comments on the AIDES website, as well as donations, have increased.